I will never stop feeling sorry for the foxes. Skulking around the garden as if they have something to be ashamed of. No doubt watching me from the safety of the gorse fort where the boys played as children, weaving bamboo sticks and rampant imaginations, endless days of youth. The foxes must laugh at my movement behind the glass, cutting up the vegetables, the butternut squash and carrots, red onions, peppers, garlic in their translucent skins, glorious potatoes and anything else I can lay my hands on to toss in golden olive oil and throw in some fresh thyme for flavour, a dash of Maldon, black pepper, coarse. Roast the vegetables and then close to the end throw on the organic tiny cherry tomatoes and broken up feta. Dinner. 

I know they are out there. The foxes. Small dog has a need to go to the back door and pace impatiently on the darkest night, anxious to explore beyond our walls. It's in her nature to want to bond with the other world of the bog. I let her go. I know she will come back. Small dog knows the value of a warm bed and a caring hand. The foxes do not. How I long for the barking to come soon, next month, if I am correct. The mating call. It wakes me up. Causes a stir in me. An excitement that is only annual. A raw reminder of the bigger world out there. The one we close our curtains to.

I met a man today at the parking lot. He was guiding traffic. The traffic of people already out there buying Christmas presents and acting incredibly agitated. I was out looking for some clothes. Ordinary things to clad me in my ordinary life. Warm sweaters. A pair of jeans. Socks. A decent hat. Nothing too glamorous. Anyhow, the man was standing in his reflector jacket and staring at the back of my bug. As I went to get into the car, he said, don't tell me you've been to all those places. He was referring to the stickers on the bumper. New York, California, Perpignan, Mojacar, Rousillon, Paris, Barcelona. I said, yes, I had been to those places but really considering my age it wasn't anything to be too blown away about. Well, he said, I think that's fantastic. Fantastic, he said, again and again. I didn't know what to say. So I just said thank you. He guided me out of my spot like a personal bodyguard. I honked the horn. He waved and smiled. We were friends.

Back to the foxes. Foxes are beautiful. I love our foxes. They come to the gorse fort and set up house and we leave them be. They have their babies in  the Spring and move on until the year moves on and then they come back again. There has to be something amazing about that. I feel honoured that they choose our back garden to settle in. To deem it worthy.  It has to say something about us. That we respect each other and wait for the cry, the barking in the middle of the night. Wait for the Small dog to come back to the door to be let in. Wait for the whole cycle to keep on going. To keep calling me to look out the window and then to never really see a thing. Nothing only but what's in my imagination.